With a stony smile he gazed into the depraved face, the blank eyes looking down into his own, and then the outer world began to shrink, to withdraw further and further.. . . For a moment there loomed before him the image of the peasant who had picked up the stone, and it seemed to jeer at him. Then he was quite alone.

“I say,” Reiting whispered, “I've got him.” Who?”

“The chap who's been stealing from the lockers!”

Törless had just come in, together with Beineberg. It was only a short time till supper, and the usher on duty had already left. Groups of chattering boys had formed between the green baize tables, and the whole large room hummed and whirred with warm life. It was the usual classroom with whitewashed walls, a big black crucifix, and portraits of the Emperor and Empress on each side of the blackboard. Beside the large iron stove, which was not yet lighted, the boys sat-some of them on the platform, some of them on overturned chairs-among them those who had been at the railway station that afternoon to see Törless's parents off. Apart from Reiting they were the tall Hofmeier and Dschjusch, a little Polish count who was known by this nickname.

Törless felt a certain curiosity.

The lockers, which were at the back of the room, were long cupboards subdivided into compartments that could be locked, and in them the boys kept their letters, books, money, and all their little pet possessions.

For some time now various boys had been complaining that they had missed small sums of money, but none of them had anything definite to go on.

Beineberg was the first to be able to say with certainty that the previous week he had been robbed of a considerable sum of money. But only Reiting and Törless knew of it.

They suspected the servants.

“Go on, tell us!” Törless urged.

But Reiting made a swift sign to him. “Sssh! Later. Nobody knows anything about it yet.”

“Servant?” Törless whispered.

“Well, give us some idea, anyway. Who?”

Reiting turned away from the others and said in a low voice: “B.” No one else had heard anything of this whispered conversation. Törless was thunderstruck at what he had learnt. B.? That could only be Basini. And surely that wasn't possible! His mother was a wealthy woman, and his guardian an 'Excellency'. Törless could not bring himself to believe it, and yet time and again the story Bozena had told came to his mind.

He could scarcely wait for the moment when the others went in to supper. Beineberg and Reiting remained behind, on the pretext of having had so much to eat that afternoon.

Reiting suggested that it would be better to go 'upstairs' and talk about it there.

They went out into the corridor, which stretched endlessly in each direction outside the classroom. The flickering gaslight lit it only in patches, and their footsteps echoed from recess to recess, however lightly they walked.

About fifty yards from the door there was a staircase leading up to the second floor, where the natural science 'specimen room was, and other collections that were used in teaching. There were also a large number of empty rooms.

From there on the stairs became narrow and went up, in short flights at right-angles to each other, to the attics. And-as old buildings are often whimsical in plan, with an abundance of nooks and crannies and unmotivated steps-this staircase actually went a considerable way above the level of the attics, so that on the other side of the heavy, iron, locked door, which blocked the way further, it was necessary to go down again, by a flight of wooden steps, in order to reach the floor of the attic.

What this meant was that on this side of the attic door was waste space some yards high, reaching up into the rafters. In this place, which hardly anybody ever entered, old stage-scenery had been stored, dating from school theatricals in the remote past.

Even at brightest noon the daylight on this staircase was reduced

to a twilight, which was choked with dust, for this way into the attic, lying as it did in a remote wing of the enormous building, was almost never used.

From the top landing Beineberg swung himself over the bannister and, still holding on to the bars, let himself drop between the pieces of scenery. Reiting and Törless followed him. There they got a footing on a crate that had been specially dragged along for that purpose, and from there jumped to the floor.

Even if the eye of someone standing on the stairs had become accustomed to the darkness, that person could not possibly have seen anything there but an irregular and indistinct jumble of variously shaped pieces of stage-scenery all piled up together.

But when Beineberg shifted one of these pieces of scenery slightly to one side, a narrow tunnel opened up before the boys.

They hid the crate that had aided them in their descent, and entered the tunnel.

Here it became completely dark, and one had to know one's way very well in order to make progress. Now and then one of the big pieces of canvas scenery rustled, when they brushed against it; there was a scurrying on the floors as of startled mice; and their nostrils were filled with a musty smell as though from long-unopened trunks.

The three boys, who knew the way well, nevertheless went along very cautiously, step for step, careful to avoid tripping on any of the ropes pulled tight across the floor as traps and alarm-signals.

It was some time before they reached a little door on their right, only a short distance from the wall separating this place from the attic.

When Beineberg opened this door they found themselves in a narrow room under the top landing. It looked fantastic enough in the light of a small, flickering oil-lamp, which Beineberg had lit.

The ceiling was horizontal only where it was directly under the landing, and even here only just high enough for one to be able to stand upright. Towards the back it sloped away, following the line of the stairs, until it ended in an acute angle. The thin partition wall at the opposite side of the room divided the attic from the staircase, and the third wall was formed by the brickwork on which the stairs rested. It was only the fourth wall, in which the door was, that seemed to have been added specially.